Topic Description

Specific Challenge:

The ICT are generally valued in terms of skill development, learning and future employability of young generations. Educational and training institutions are getting equipped with ICT tools and educators are trained for designing activities aimed at digital literacy and for making use of media for educational purposes. The time children and young people spend on ICT has been increasing in school, at home and for leisure. However, research on the impact of ICT on health, lifestyles, wellbeing, safety and security has identified potential threats. Moreover, the quantity and quality of digital media use vary accordingly to family backgrounds, with the risk of widening the educational divide between children from favoured and disadvantaged groups. The challenge is to develop a solid and independent multidisciplinary and longitudinal knowledge base that explains under which conditions harmful versus beneficial effects occur so that effective social, educational, health and online safety policies, practices and market regulation can be developed.

Scope:

a) Research and Innovation action

Proposals should assess the online behaviour of children and young people as well as their use of digital content and devices by socio-economic, gender and age group, with attention to motivations for using ICT at home, for leisure and in schools or training institutions. Robust methodologies for measuring and explaining long-term impacts in areas such as skills and competencies (i.e. digital and media literacy, innovation and creativity, learning and socio-emotional competencies and more specific labour market relevant skills), wellbeing and (mental) health or other relevant aspects of brain development should be developed and tested across EU level. Methodologies should focus on understanding why and how some children and adolescents benefit from ICT use while others seem to be impacted negatively. Evidence-based models identifying and analysing at-risk groups can be developed. Proposals should take into account diversity as appropriate (age, cultural, social and economic background, gender etc.) and address the impact of ICT use on education inequalities. (Lack of) equity of access to ICT across social groups should also be considered. Children and young people should be active collaborators in the project.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU in the order of EUR 3 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

This coordination and support action should aim at the establishment of a Pan-European platform to co-ordinate research activities in the EU Member States and Associated Countries with the purpose of developing a knowledge base, and filling current gaps, into how children and young people behave and interact online as well as the risks they may encounter while online. Proposals should pay particular attention to the vulnerability of children and young people in the digital environment and propose solutions for building online resilience, while also taking cultural and gender-related issues into account. Through the proposed platform, researchers across different countries, disciplines and approaches should share existing knowledge, fill research gaps, build capacity and work towards a consensual framework for future work. Based on the evidence base, policy recommendations should be developed on how to best protect and ensure positive online experiences for children and young people. In addition, emerging issues such as the rise of hate speech and radicalisation should be addressed.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU in the order of EUR 1.5 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Expected Impact:

Explanatory models will inform relevant stakeholders and practitioners on the long-term effects of ICT on child development and on practices that maximise risks (risk factors), minimise risks (resilience factors) and maximise benefits (enhancing factors). The action will contribute to better regulation (e.g. labelling, evaluation of ICT educational tools, protection of online users) and to a safer and more beneficial use of digital technologies at home, for leisure and in educational settings by children and young people. It will formulate recommendations in support of national and European policies in the field. The action will enhance cooperation between schools and families (school-community partnership) in ensuring safe and productive ways of using ICTs. It will also improve statistical data, generate innovative quantitative and qualitative methods as needed, and expand the knowledge base on in-depth case studies.

[1] This activity is directly aimed at supporting the development and implementation of evidence base for R&I policies and supporting various groups of stakeholders. It is excluded from the delegation to Research Executive Agency and will be implemented by the Commission services.

Topic conditions and documents

1. Eligible countries:described in Annex A of the Work Programme.
A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon 2020 projects. See the information in the Online Manual.

2. Eligibility and admissibility conditions: described in Annex B and Annex C of the Work Programme.

Proposal page limits and layout: please refer to Part B of the proposal template in the submission system below.

3. Evaluation:

Evaluation criteria, scoring and thresholds are described in Annex H of the Work Programme.

Submission and evaluation processes are described in the Online Manual.

4. Indicative time for evaluation and grant agreements:

Information on the outcome of evaluation (single-stage call): maximum 5 months from the deadline for submission.
Signature of grant agreements: maximum 8 months from the deadline for submission.

Members of consortium are required to conclude a consortium agreement, in principle prior to the signature of the grant agreement.

7. Open access must be granted to all scientific publications resulting from Horizon 2020 actions.

Where relevant, proposals should also provide information on how the participants will manage the research data generated and/or collected during the project, such as details on what types of data the project will generate, whether and how this data will be exploited or made accessible for verification and re-use, and how it will be curated and preserved.

Open access to research data
The Open Research Data Pilot has been extended to cover all Horizon 2020 topics for which the submission is opened on 26 July 2016 or later. Projects funded under this topic will therefore by default provide open access to the research data they generate, except if they decide to opt-out under the conditions described in Annex L of the Work Programme. Projects can opt-out at any stage, that is both before and after the grant signature.

Note that the evaluation phase proposals will not be evaluated more favourably because they plan to open or share their data, and will not be penalised for opting out.

Open research data sharing applies to the data needed to validate the results presented in scientific publications. Additionally, projects can choose to make other data available open access and need to describe their approach in a Data Management Plan.

Projects need to create a Data Management Plan (DMP), except if they opt-out of making their research data open access. A first version of the DMP must be provided as an early deliverable within six months of the project and should be updated during the project as appropriate. The Commission already provides guidance documents, including a template for DMPs. See the Online Manual.

Eligibility of costs: costs related to data management and data sharing are eligible for reimbursement during the project duration.

The legal requirements for projects participating in this pilot are in the article 29.3 of the Model Grant Agreement.